“This post draws significantly from an interview on August 10, 2009 with Hal Plotkin, a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Dept. of Education, who has closely followed and been involved with OER policies in California. The interview was part of research on the educational materials sector being conducted under the Industrial Cooperation Project at the Berkman Center at Harvard University. The research is part of a broader project being led by Prof. Yochai Benkler and coordinated by Carolina Rossini. In the research, we are seeking to understand the approaches to innovation in some industrial sectors, such as alternative energy, educational materials, and biotechnology. The intention is to map the degree to which open and commons-based practices are being used compared to proprietary approaches and what forces drive the adoption and development of these models.”

Like all content on the Publius site, the essay is available via CC BY-SA.

• Studies on the use and growth of open/free licensing models
• Critical analyses of the role of Creative Commons or similar models in promoting a Free Culture
• Building innovative technical, legal, organizational, or business solutions and interfaces between the sharing economy and the commercial economy
• Modeling incentives, innovation and community dynamics in open collaborative peer production and in related social networks
• Economic models for the sustainability of commons-based production
• Successes and failures of open licensing
• Analyses of policies, court rulings or industry moves that influence the future of Free Culture
• Regional studies of Free Culture with global lessons/implications
• Lessons from implementations of open/free licensing and distribution models for specific communities
• Definitions of openness and freedom for different media types, users and communities
• Broader sociopolitical, legal and cultural implications of Free Culture initiatives and peer production practices
• Free Culture, Memory Institutions and the broader Public Sector
• Open Science/ Research/ Education
• Cooperation theory and practice, dynamics of cooperation and competition
• Methodological approaches for studying the characteristics, history, impact or growth of Free Culture

It is tremendously exciting to see the commons attracting this research interest. The workshop will be held October 23 at Harvard. Submissions are due August 9.

Also see the last year’s post on the First Interdisciplinary Research Workshop on Free Culture.

Photo by dsearls under CC BY-SA

As many of you may remember, last December CC paired up with Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society to host a panel discussion entitled, “The Commons: Celebrating accomplishments, discerning futures.” Panelists included James Boyle, The Public Domain; Lawrence Lessig, Remix; Joi Ito, Free Souls; and Molly S. Van Houweling, Creative Commons’ first Executive Director. Jonathan Zittrain, of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, moderated.

A video of the panel discussion is now available at Internet Archive for you to watch and download.

We hope you’ll enjoy the video, which offers an intimate glimpse into CC’s history through the eyes of the people who were there from the beginning. Larry, Molly, Jamie and Joi each recall some wonderful stories and anecdotes from the early days of CC, and offer up new perspectives on where the organization should be headed. It’s a great video that speaks to the importance and relevance of CC as an organization and a leader in the move toward a more participatory culture.

Good news! In case you missed our very special panel at Harvard Law School, we have plenty of media for you.

First, there’s video of the entire panel up on YouTube and higher resolution versions are also available over at the Berkman Center.

What makes this panel so interesting (and why you should take some time to enjoy it over the holidays) is that it offers an intimate glimpse into CC’s history through the eyes of the people who were there from the beginning. Larry, Molly, Jamie and Joi recall some wonderful stories and anecdotes from the early days of CC and offer up new perspectives on where the organization should be headed. Put simply, this is a must watch if you’re interested in our history.

Also check out my photos of the panel and reception afterwards, and Doc Searls also has some shots as well.

All of the user-generated content at Finals Club is released under a CC BY-NC license, keeping the content created therein open and free to use for future students. While currently only available at a select group of universities, Finals Club shows great promise as a platform for students to collaborate academically in an open manner.

Book Talk and Reception:
Monday, September 15th, 2008
6:00PM, to be followed by a cocktail reception.
Free and open to the public, no RSVP required

Location
Hotel Vitale
8 Mission St
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 278-3700
Directions and map

The book talk and reception is generously co-hosted by: David Hornik of August Capital, the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, Creative Commons, Tod Cohen of eBay Inc., the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Stanford’s Center for Internet & Society, and Meg Garlinghouse of Yahoo! Inc.

The Publius Project “brings together a distinguished collection of Internet observers, scholars, innovators, entrepreneurs, activists, technologists, and still other experts to write short essays, foster a public dialogue, and create a durable record of how the rules of cyberspace are being formed — with a view to affecting their future incarnations.”

The most recent essay, posted today, is titled “Muddling Through Internet Governance”. All essays are signed by their authors and licensed CC BY.